Overview of the collaborative
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) were commissioned by the Scottish Government to deliver the Value Management Collaborative to test and spread a Value Management approach across NHS Scotland.
The aim of the collaborative was to embed the Value Management Approach at team level in identified care settings within six NHS boards by March 2024.
The Value Management Collaborative launched in November 2019 and ended in October 2022. It was delivered during a global pandemic and ended earlier than originally planned (March 2024) due to early cessation of central funding. This had a significant impact on the collaborative’s ability to achieve its overall aim.
Six participating boards were selected through an application process:
The Value Management approach
The approach was initially developed and tested within NHS Highland working in collaboration with IHI. This testing informed the case for a wider collaborative as it demonstrated a range of quality, productivity and efficiency improvements within the test teams. These included:
- Cost per patient per week improvements of between 10 and 21%.
- Of the Value Management teams who identified falls as a key safety measure, a comparison with similar non-value management teams demonstrated that those using a Value Management approach had a 25.9% reduction in falls during 2017-2018, compared to a 2.5% reduction among comparison teams.
- Productivity improvement through number of patients seen per week of between 2 – 115%
The Value Management Approach supports teams to deliver services using data to drive the continuous improvement of safety, quality, experience, cost and capacity. It can help manage quality by bringing together a range of improvement and assurance programmes and initiatives teams or boards may be involved in. This may include Access QI, Realistic Medicine, the Scottish Patient Safety Programme or Excellence in Care.
Value Management contributed to a positive culture looking at quality and safety at team level" - Improvement Coach
The Value Management Approach consists of three components underpinned by coaching, quality improvement and project management methodology:
- Box score: a spreadsheet that includes measures of quality, safety, experience, capacity and cost. It is populated with data relevant to the team and organisation’s priorities and helps provide an understanding of clinical and financial data.
- Visual management board: a communication tool to allow teams to keep track of continuous improvement when multiple, complex improvement projects are running.
- Weekly huddles: a communication tool to help proactively manage quality and safety within a team.